Michelle James ©2019
Facilitating Creative Process: Being with the Awkward Silence
Inevitably, when facilitating creative process; introducing participants to a new activity, process
or framework; or asking them a question they
don't readily know the answer you get a
deer-in-the-headlights look, often accompanied
by a palpable silence.
This silence can feel awkward for facilitators. It did for me when I first started facilitating, and I used to do anything to fill it - re-explaining or over-explaining what I just said, asking them questions, asking for their questions, interjecting comments, or anything else to try to reduce the uncomfortableness in the room - theirs and mine. Until I got that this is part of the emergence process when introducing people to something new and unfamiliar for them. I learned over the years to love the pauses, and see them as fertile and alive, and an indication of creative up-leveling.
They are processing in the silence. They are taking it in. They are experiencing the dissonance and discomfort (for some) that comes with learning something new, making new connections, or taking a perceived - or real - psychological risk within a group. They are thinking, reflecting, and being with whatever you just asked. It's new so not readily available to their conscious awareness. The more experience I got, the more inner work I did, and the more I learned about the brain and its natural meaning-making system, the more I came to love these palpable "pregnant" moments of potential, before something emerged.
Here are some reflections on holding the space and be with the silence while facilitating creative process:
1. Give them the time to take it in and be with it. Hold the space. If they ask questions for clarity of your instructions or your question, clarify. Then go back to holding the space without intervening or trying to fill it. Hold the space for someone to eventually say something, or start the process.
2. Hold the space with positive intention. Have faith in them and their creativity - even if they don't. If you hold the intention that they will absolutely be able to do come up with what they need, you impact the energy in the room differently - with an inner authority - than if you are filled with doubts about whether they can do or get it. Or if they'll like what you're doing. The facilitator is there to be the strong container-holder for the participants, not the other way around. If you hold it with peace and ease in your heart, they will feel it, and it will open them up and put them more at ease.
3. Let it take however long it really takes. (Not how long you think it should take.) Whether they feel ready, or just feel uncomfortable in the silence, someone will eventually start the process. Every time. Then others will follow. That is creative process, and the "group field" at work. Jumping in too soon breaks the dynamic tension that is often needed in the creative process for something new to emerge.
4. Do your inner work to hold space with your full presence. That might include your own pre-workshop rituals to get yourself centered, or energized, or whatever you need to be able to hold space with presence. Being present mean showing up as the facilitator full-on to whatever shows up in your session, and standing in that presence for the group as they navigate their doubts or fears.
5. Delight in and support whatever does finally emerge. If it needs re-direction, or modified instructions, do it then...but build on and support what is happening - that will bring out more from the group. They're already are infinitely creative - you're just helping them remember that, and part of that is giving them the space to pause as they generate from within.
Take what resonates and leave the rest. :-)
Michelle James ©2019
Image from: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/22654108/deer-in-headlights
Look for more on this topic and others in my upcoming book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Creativity
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10 Creative Emergence Reminders for Volatile Times
Many people are going through what feels like accelerating challenging times now. There is much
happening in our world beyond our control…and…much more that we can control than we think. This post is a reminder of that…that it is not about living in a world where there are no constraints (i.e., social, relational, political, familial, health, financial, etc), but finding and applying your own purposeful creativity WITHIN those constraints.
Sometimes it’s the constraints that offer us what will one day become out greatest learnings and potential for growth. The following are a few points that came to me, when working with recent coaching clients, that I thought I would share with you to use as food for thought. They will be part of a larger, more detailed writing in my certification program and coaching guide, but wanted to share a few of them with you now in case they could be helpful now. As always, take what’s useful, and leave the rest.
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10 Quick Creative Emergence Coaching Reminders
1. Your inner Creative Source is a life-generating-life part within you that is always for your holistic generativity - your highest aliveness at all levels. It's invitation is to get connected to it, and stay connected to it, because it has no other agenda than your highest aliveness, thriving, and expressionl. At any given movement you can listen to the voice of fear, doubt, worry (which may have validity at times), or the inner creative voice. The Source voice in never judgmental and it’s not tough love - it’s unapologetically life-giving and generative. It may mean slowing down, letting go, and listening in to hear it, though - giving it space, time and attention.
2. No matter what circumstance you find yourself in, there is a part of you that knows what is yours to do to navigate it. Asking “What’s mine to do, no more no less?” allows that part to become more internally empowered, with more choices and options; and, not force or coerce a situation or person down a path that is not generative for you or them or all involved. No matter how much influence someone else seems to have over you now, you have the empowerment to discover what’s yours to do within that situation. Do your part…and let the natural, animating life force (Universe, God, Creativity, Time, Flow, Spirit, Nature, Creative Unconscious, etc - whatever you see it as) do its part. I.e., plant the seed, water the soil, give it sun...then let go and let the animating life force help it bloom.
3. At any given time, we’re being invited to go beyond our current construct (set of beliefs about anything - ourselves, our lives, others, how the world works, etc), and up-level into a larger, more inclusive framework that may or may not be familiar. Allowing ourselves to move beyond our current beliefs and constructs (inner map of things) and into what Life is really showing us at any given time frees us to navigate our calling. Get centered, ask, call it forth, dance it forth, draw it forth, pray, meditate - whatever feels right for you - then receive. Just don’t box in how what you get needs to show up…instead, watch for clues, feelings, impulses, signs, synchronicities, dreams, intuitions insights, a-has, and messages in all kind of ways. Ask for clarity…then let go and pay attention, letting your creative unconscious work with you, making the unconscious conscious. Just be present...and open for the unexpected.
4. Forgive your resistances, procrastination, back-tracking, divergences, missteps, or other judgements about yourself you feel you may be doing to sabotage. Sometimes there is great wisdom in that “sabotage” that we can’t see at the time. Just like in nature, emergences have right timing, and sometimes there are other foundational things we need to learn on the way, that we don’t know about until they occur. And always, there is a pay off for all choices we have made. (In the work I do with my clients, the most common pay off is staying in the familiarity and comfort zone of the known - “the devil we know”). Be gentle with yourself as you locate the pay off. That gives you options of how else to proceed, or something else that you may need to heal, move though, cultivate, or be with for a while first. The key is not to jump into evaluation. There are times of contraction in every birth, times of resistance, and times of “ two steps forward, one step back.”
5. Be conscious. For whatever you DO really need, if you become conscious and aware of it, you won’t just act out of the contractions without consciousness. If you have to make a tough decision, don’t make it out of fear or hope…get conscious of your inner voice, and see where it guides you. Being conscious and aware is our friend in tumultuous times. It gives us choice and possibility.
6. This work is not about being fearless…it is about feeling the fears, doubts, questions, wonderings…and doing it anyway. Moving forward anyway, without any guarantees. Inspired guidance will not make you guarantees that fits into a smaller consciousness of yourself….it always invites us into a larger consciousness of ourselves You get that expansion - living into it - during the journey, not before it. The comfort-with-discomfort emerges over time and often through moving through contractions. We get to feel more connected to our inner voice and out path as we walk it, not before...each step of the way.
7. Your soul’s true work is never just about you. It is always also about those whom we serve. Whatever you are called to do by your inner Creative Source has embedded in it a greater call - ways that others will benefit by your service. When you go into doubts, it can be helpful to think of them - makes it easier to keep going when focused on those who could benefit from you doing your work.
8. With every healthy YES, there is a series of healthy NOs. What you say NO to is as important as what you say yes to in any emergence process. With every yes to something new, adjustments usually need to be made - some of which can be tough. There usually needs to be boundaries set somewhere. Healthy, life-giving boundaries are a friend in an emergence process. Every emergence has its own set of flow-and-boundaries integration to accompany it.
9. You are infinitely amazingly creative and unique already! You have a path no one else in the world ever has or ever will. You have a unique integration of gifts, experiences, ideas, hopes, dreams, visions, hardships, hurts, strengths, challenges, skills, learnings, and wisdom that no one else ever has or ever will. We all need you to use all of those things to create your unique offering to the world. No else else ever can. It is your great gift and the world’s great privilege to receive your offering.
10. I love this quote by Angeles Arrien in the forward to Gabrielle Roth's Maps to Ecstasy: The Healing Power of Movement.: “In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul. Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.” No matter what you go through or what you need to do for your soulful work/business, using dance, movement, art, creativity, storytelling, crafts, writing, and silence (emergence space) will help you get more clarity, feel more alive and connected, and better able to be resilient in challenging times. Creativity in any expression generates more creativity.
Cheers to your creative uniqueness, and you unique offering to the world! You so got this!
Michelle James©2018
Creative Emergence Coaching, Facilitating & Training
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The Energized Facilitator: Getting the Most out of Creative Process Facilitation
image from fitnessandwellnessnews.com
As a facilitator of creative process, your energy has an impact of those in the room. It’s an often overlooked part of facilitating creativity, yet it's the most immediate, primal, and direct way of connecting in ways words and actions alone can not (like when someone walks in a room and you get a feel about them before they even say anything). Most people feel energy immediately and instinctively, before the analytical brain gets on board to think about it. Your energetic state can help draw out or hinder the creativity of others, as well as your own.
While most facilitators of creative process already have Energizer activities for participants, not all take time to prepare their own energetic field before the workshop. The energy you enter a space with, and cultivate as the day goes on, adds to or takes from participant experience. Actors, improvisers, athletes all warm-up before they preform. They don’t just show up and start performing. Similarly, warming yourself up with pre-workshop “energizer rituals” helps you not only get present, but also energized and enlivened. If you find ways of energizing yourself before entering the room - “prep rituals” you do alone before the workshop starts - that begins to create an energized container for participants as they enter. Because energy is something felt, and not thought, it is immediate, and has an impact on the nervous system of participants, non-verbally - not just their minds.
There's no limit to the ways you can generate energy for yourself before a workshop or meeting. Over the past 14 years facilitating Creative Facilitation workshops, I’ve heard countless ways facilitators get energized. I play around with different ones myself to keep it fresh in me, and to stay on my own creative edges, mostly improvising as I go with the goal of trying something new. The times I did not warm up, I noticed a difference in the group’s creative energy, cohesiveness, and output, and how I was holding their energy. I learned the hard way how important it is for me to do my own energy prep work. Some people naturally have a full-on energizing presence any time of day, and in almost any circumstance…and others of us can cultivate it consciously.
You can try it playing around with Brain Gym (Google it), dancing wildly, moving non-habitually, brain teasers, tongue twisters, acting things out, meditation and other centering practices, yoga, marshal arts, and other body-centered practices, solo improv games, etc. If you do something more meditative, try also adding in something that expands and heightens your energy, so you can hold an expanded energetic space for a group - a big part of generating risk taking and creative novelty form a group. And, if you try something that pushes your own envelop - breaking your pattern with something you normally do not do - which also engages your own creative edges, the brain research repeatably shows that enhances presence, creativity, and adaptability.
If you already have awesome activities and content to share, and they are interactive and highly participatory, you can take it to a new level if you take some time to generate your own energy before showing up. Preparing yourself energetically is like starching out like a rubber band when you are by yourself, so when you get with a group, you are energetically flexible enough to expand out to whatever emerges in the group. Research had also shown that most people in groups will either consciously or subconsciously not feel psychologically safe to out-energize a facilitator, and that can impact what and how they create. A facilitator who shows up as flexible, energized, and ready for anything makes it safer for participants to engage more enthusiastically and energetically in interactive activities, and explore their own creativity in a group and each other’s creativity as a group.
If you try something new that works well for you, or if you want to chat about some ideas for your next facilitation, please drop me a line. :-)
©Michelle James 2018
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When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Creating
When the going gets tough, the tough get resilient,
empowered, creative, and improvisational. History shows us that. Times of great challenge, flux, and uncertainty can lead to into new, healthier ways of thinking, being, interacting, and creating. That’s where I am choosing put my energy...focusing on what I can influence, even if only in the smallest of ways; on what can be created; and on what options, ideas, choices, possibilities, systems, and structures can be cultivated that are more livable, thrivable, kind, and compassionate. Like in an improv scene, meeting the scene where it is and creating from there, in the unknown - which looks different for each scene, and for each person. It's a discovery process...messy, unclear, chaotic, unpolished...
We can’t control everything going on, but there are things we can control within the constraints - creativity within constraints. We can own what is going on within our selves, and within our choices. We can choose how we respond, what we do or do not do, and what we engage. We get to choose on what level and how we want to serve the situation. We get to choose how we show up, what we listen to within and outside of ourselves, what to take on, what to let go of, and what to resist, and what to create.
We can use our personal power to contribute in our unique way. Saying yes to what’s life-giving and generative, and saying no to what is not is part of the creative process. I don't have any answers for anyone, and I am not trying to simplify what is going on in the world, but I do have faith in: the power of creativity for positive personal and social change; the unknown for the new potential it contains; the questions we can ask ourselves, knowing that questions generate answers; and in the creativity and drive and hearts of human beings. Creative thinking at all levels is needed more now than ever! No one can take away our capacity to create...history - and nature - show us that.
I feel motivated to contribute at a new level. What that will look like for me at this time is still unfolding. There is something about supporting my coaching clients navigate the current terrain in their own lives and business that’s helping expand my perspective on what’s possible and the ways I can serve. I'll be sharing more as I get more clear.
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Arts-based Engagement for More Creative Ideas and Solutions
Love this quote. It's one of the reasons I use arts/movement based appraiches in my work - it helps us bypass the habitual-linear-sequential, left-brain dominant conscious thinking to access more our ourselves, and our creativity, insight, and intuition. By going into the non-linear part of our consciousness first, we mine the fertile playing field of our 'right-brain' imagination to get novelty and the unpredictable, then after we spend some time there exploring and unearthing, we bring it back to the 'left-brain' to make sense out of it, organize it, structure it, and create actionable steps from it. And we can discover new and forgotten parts of ourselves and bring them to life.
We're socialized to start figuring out something first from left-brain thinking. Arts-based engagement brings an added dimension of creativity to it. By first diverging with in the "right brain" then converging with the 'left brain" (in quotes because it's not exactly that binary) we discover new options and choices for our work and lives that we previously couldn't have imagined. The creative process of taking something abstract and making it concrete generates novel ideas, solutions, and directions. #creativeemergence #miningtheinnerrichness
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Creativity Transcends Its Models
There is no chart or graph on creative process, types, states, approaches, mindsets, steps, stages, etc. that that encompasses all of the complexities, nuances, multi-dimensionality and paradoxes of creativity. I post things here not because I agree with them in full, or see them as fully accurate or comprehensive, but to show different viewpoints, as a means of expanding perception and understanding...not to limit what creativity is and can be.
I love models. And I loves to create different ones around applied creativity. But I have never seen or created a model that I feel is comprehensive or accurate...each just shows a different window for people to reflect on, question, yes-and, engage, challenge, and/or find what's missing -- and take what resonates and leave the rest. There are problems and limitations with every model we can create, as creativity and the creative process does not and can not fit neatly into categorizations We can observe characteristics and patterns of creative emergence, and label those patterns, but it just a partial map, not the territory.
"A map is not the territory it represents." – Alfred Korzybski
There is no one model for the creative process, or one that is comprehensive and fully accurate. At best, a model can be, in the words of Ken Wilber, true but partial.
For me, this is why the study, practice and engagement of creativity is endlessly fascinating and not boring - we can never fully capture, know or understand it mentally...we can just get parts of it to piece together for our understandings as we grow and evolve - and we can have full creative EXPERIENCES. My 2 cents.
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Finding, Cultivating and Living Your Creatively Unique Purpose
This is an excerpt of a blog post I wrote in 2013:
Image from theconstructionzone.wordpress.com
The following are just a few of many components of finding, cultivating, and living into your purpose. The discovery process always work best with whole-brain engagement, playfulness, body-centered practices, reflection, and other juicy stuff which I have written about a lot, but is not the focus on this post. This is a much larger - and longer - process than a blog post can begin to cover.
4 Reflection Points:
1. Discovering your aliveness. What gives you juice, energy, engagement and meaning. Aliveness has many expressions: What's fun for you? What energize you? What do you like to play at? Tinker with? Explore? What engages your heart? Your mind? Your body? Your soul? What do you do because it's "so you"? How do you shine (or want to shine)? What captivates your whole self, not because it is interesting or cool to others, but because it is compelling to YOU? What triggers your curiosity? What did you love doing, being, feeling at any point of your life or now? What did you love doing, being, feeling at any point of your life or now? What does "Alive" feel like for you? How do you get that experience?
Included in purposeful aliveness is meaning. What is meaningful for you? What moves you? What stirs you? What inspires you? What challenges in the world call to you? How do you like to contribute? What is a vision you have for a better world? What roles would you like to play? (no need to limit to just one...old paradogm was being boxed into one role - in the emerging paradigm, you can play many roles). What are the needs you see out there that speak most loudly to you? How could the world use your help? Who are you most drawn to work with? For? How could that look? Dont limit it to existing channels or structures...play with creating your own. :-)
This is an ongoing process, not an event. It is not about sitting down one time and listing it all just once. It is a deeper day-to-day reflection, and it changes over time. Start with where you are and what you know...and see what emerges as you engage it on and ingoing basis.
2. Cultivating your aliveness and embodying it over time. There are so many way to embody it, more than we can imagine. One aspect of living into it includes being conscious of to what you say YES to and to what you say NO. Once you start engaging your aliveness, and extracting meaning in it, you further cultivate your purpose by saying YES and stepping up to ALL of that which it requires...and, as significantly, saying NO to - and NOT doing - everything that is no longer serving it. With every healthy, live-giving YES, there come a series of healthy NOs.
Sometime the NOs are is the hardest part - to people, events, ideas, and most often, old habits and ways of being. Committing can take a moment...but living into it, embodying it, and choosing from it moment, by moment, day by day is an ongoing process. It requires presence, consciousness, self awareness and breaking old patterns...and cultivating new ones.
Sometimes it means embarking on trainings or events that have no seeming direct relationship to your work (even though they eventually inform it). For example, I spent 5 years is a psycho-physical healing, movement and bodywork training, CoreSomatics, and became a Master Practitioner. I took it becuase I was deelpy curious about the wisdom of the body after a bodywork experience I had, and the training had a lot of energy for me - not knowing if or how I would even apply it. I don't have a hands-on healing practice, but what I learned about the somatic intelligence in that training - and the ways I related it to creative process - deeply informed my work and the design of all of my public and corporate workshops. I bring movement and the body into everything I do, even when not a body-centered program.
3. Creating from it. Purpose always aligns self, others and the whole. I have worked with hundreds of passionate entrepreneurs who have created their own work in the world...and without exception, when each connected with his or her purpose and sense of "calling", it was always generative, aligned with serving some greater good. Serving something larger than just ourselves is NATURALLY embedded in our purpose...in some way or other - often requiring us to expand our mental framework to see that. Sharing something alive in ourselves seems to be an inherent part of purpose.
People who create their own path centered around their purpose discover it already has service built in. It many, sometimes, require us to expand our belief systems of what service means, and how it looks, not limited to conventional ideas about who serves and contributes. It is not just about carrying what you know in service, but also creating something that serves something larger than just you - and it does include you. (It is not about sacrficing who you are in service of others - that's not generative for the whole. It is about structuring your aliveness into an accessible purpose.
It can be anything - a service, product, a new idea, a framework, a computer program, a business, a work of art, a way of doing something, a design, a blog post... anything that is uniquely yours. There is a sense of inner empowerment that comes from accessing your “creative source” and creating from it, no matter how you do it. EVERYONE is creative and everyone can access it.
4. Claiming your Inner Authority. Noticing patterns you have discovered as a result of "working it" gives you inner authority and ownership that's not dependent on what others think. When we leave our socialized beliefs and enter the juicy, messy territory of our inner resourcefulness, it can be scary. It can be challenging to discover our true voice, the one that contains our creatively unique purpose and expression, and weed out all of the other voices with which we've been socialized.
There is no short cut to this. It requires going under layers of accepted assumptions, and creating time to listen to a voice inside of us we may not even know is there. Sometimes that voice is loud and we get a clear vision or "aha" moment where we know what we want to do and how, but often that voice starts out softly, and we have to nurture it out. But it is always in there...waiting for us to engage with it.
Once we learn how to hear it, we become aware it's always communicating. Once we have engaged our work for a while, we pay more attention, we can begin to notice patterns, honor our own observances, see larger patterns at work that connect to our work, and formulate "wisdom" form integrating knowledge, experience, creativity and intuition in our unique ways. That is when we are less dependent on others for evaluation, and become more centered in our own inner authority. We can hear information from the inside out, and discern what resonates and what does not. We question everything. We run things through our OWN "resonance meter" to see how it feels. Does this feel right? Does it feel like it is mine to do? It can take time to hear the subtleties of the language of our “creative source” but once we learn its language, we begin to trust our inner voice.
There is a type of freedom that comes with engaging your own inner authority and crafting your path...and it's not always easy. In fact, it usually comes with messiness, seeming setbacks, resistances, fears and doubts....your own, and sometimes others around you. Cultivating your creatively unique purposeful work often brings up the "shadow" as well as the light. But being with it all, as it emerges, and making generative choices along the way is that’s how that life-giving voice inside of us gets stronger.
Mistakes within purpose are simply iterations in the emergence process. There is no way around making mistakes, probably lots of them...and purpose allows you to learn from them, to use them. They become awareness lessons, they strengthen knowledge and resolve, and they become innovations to create something new and different.
These are just a few reflections around purpose as they came to me to share today, based on my own experiences and from coaching others who are engaging their purposeful work. Not everything may resonate with you. You may even might disagree with some of it. My hope is not to persuade you on an idea, but simply offer some food for thought or inspiration. As with everything, take what resonates and leave the rest. :-)
Michelle James ©2013
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Creative Destruction within the Creative Process
Image by Gem J Shimada
A friend recently asked on Facebook, "How do you motivate yourself and stay enthusiastic when surrounded by a collapsing civilization?" I thought I'd post my response here since it was, not surprisingly, all about applied creativity. Specifically, the creative destruction within a creative emergence process - being with both the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new. Here's my 2 cents:
In any detox process, it gets worse before it gets better as all the sickness, toxins, chaotic nasty stuff rises up to the surface before it is ready to be released, and a new healthier order emerges. In a healing process. the same thing happens….all the layers of wounding, pain, shadow, and nastiness emerge to our conscious minds to be healed, released and/or transformed. Some of us see what's happening as going through a giant collective detox and healing, and re-calibrating to a more life-giving, heart/soul-centered foundation.
Right now are faced with all the darkest, most shadowy aspects of human nature - and results of the actions that emerged from that - at the same time the most previously buried and empowering aspects of human nature are also emerging in order to heal the wounds, nurture the detox process, and create new foundations form the healthiness, not the sickest, parts of ourselves. The nastiness we see all around us is disheartening and devastating…and…is a great invitation to access the life-generating-new-life creative source within us to create new foundations. Things horrific have come up to the surface for us to see, be conscious of, and transform. That process is painful and joyful, hopeless-feeling at times and hope-filled, scary and empowering.
We are being invited to take our creativity to new, more inclusive levels - including and transcending personal expression to that which serves the greater unfolding. We can still fully feel the pain and frustration of what is happening, and the injustices to humans, animals, and the earth (which can feel overwhelming at times) AND stay connected to the life-giving source underneath that is calling to emerge new foundations. It's there that we have power to move beyond the current situation and create something new, one person/group/org/community/etc at a time….which means not using old paradigm approaches and change-structures to try to "control" the process of how we navigate this transition that like so many well meaning groups still do.
I feel if enough of us do the real work to discover what's uniquely ours to do (no more, no less), then connect with others based on that resonance (not an externally imposed set of values), we will reach a tipping point for a new - an unstoppable energetic momentum - and life-giving way of being in the world. The old ways and power structures will not hold the power they have and currently hold, and new possibilities that we literally can't yet imagine unfold to guide the global healing, re-generating process. As you find what's yours to do, that meaning often becomes the motivator to go on in the scary space of the collapse of the familiar, and before the new has been formed. Destruction within creation is part of the creative emergence process.
© Michelle James 2015
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Creativity is Living Paradox
Living creativity is living paradox. It is ubiquitous and universal and also uniquely personal. It contains a balance of left and right brain, cultivating and emergence, thinking and being, reflection and action, receptivity and generativity, planning and improvisation, heart and head, left brain and right brain, mind and body, analysis and intuition, movement and stillness, order and chaos, expansion and contraction, inward focus and outward focus, capturing and letting go, individuality and connection, taking in and releasing, and structure and flow.
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Whole Brain Thinking and Applied Improvisation for Innovation, Ideation and Creative Problem Solving
I was recently interviewd by Michael Smith, President of TeraTech, on the Conscious Software Development Telesummit on Whole Brain Thinking and Applied Improvisation for Innovation, Ideation, and Creative Problem Solving. Below are excerpts from the transcript of the interview. For the complete interview, along with some techniques to apply, sign up for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit for FREE at http://conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com
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Michael: What do you mean by "whole-brain thinking" and why is that important?
Michelle: Whole-brain thinking, or the way I would describe it, is using more of our innate capacities. We were born to both think in linear/logical ways as well as holistic/intuitive/metaphorical ways. Integrating whole-brain thinking is just bringing more of our natural thinking into the workplace, for our intuitive thinking, metaphorical thinking, our capacity to see both the big picture and the details, our capacity to both think from synthesis and integration as well as sequentially, imagining and observing, being able to envision beyond what is, plus in addition to more of the left-brain/linear, proving and verifying, expanding and reducing.
It's using complimentary types of thinking - thinking both in terms of possibilities and strategies and in terms of context and interdependencies…using the visual mind and the verbal mind, not just left-brain/linear-dominant thinking only. By integrating multiple ways of thinking, and using more of our whole-brain capacities even in ways we haven't been socialized or trained or educated in the workplace to do, and by bringing more of arts-based and other different types of thinking into the workplace, it's easier to create new ideas, and create new ideas much more quickly. It accelerates the learning and creativity path that we might be on and expands the mental playing field so we have more options and choices.
Michael: A lot of organizations are pretty left-brain orientated, so how do you integrate this into a company culture?
Michelle: In some ways there's some cultural specificity around it, and in other ways it's more general. I'll speak to the more general ways. For example, resistance. Understanding that once you try to integrate new ways of thinking into any group, individual group, team, or culture, you're going to naturally have some resistance. I call it "natural resistance" because it's the same kind of resistance that you find in nature.
In nature, all systems are designed to maintain the status quo until the new birth starts to emerge. For example, the chick coming out of the egg doesn't feel the resistance of the shell until it's ready to be born. Similarly, you find that as soon as people start to integrate more whole-brain thinking, different kinds of thinking, or different types of practice in the organization, you might initially find some resistance, because there's always those trying to more maintain the status quo while others try to bring in the new thinking.
One framework I like to use is divergence and convergence. Divergent thinking is going big and wide, building on things, engaging possibilities, visualizing, seeking out what's unusual. We hear about it often in brain-storming…suspending judgment as you're expanding the playing field - expanding what's possible - but you do it for a certain amount of time, not indefintely. Then you bring it back into a convergent thinking where you're narrowing the playing field, you're selecting from the ideas, contracting, honing in, discerning, focusing, rating by criteria, making sense of…
Unfortunately, what happens is many people don't leave the convergence to go into convergence. They will get meetings and say, "All right, now let's organize what we have," but they haven't stepped out beyond their current framework to play with and expand possibilities first. When you play with possibilities, it is messy, and it might not make sense for awhile, and it can look a little crazy. Like Einstein said, "If at first the idea is not absurd, there's no hope for it," and while that doesn't mean all good ideas appear ridiculous at first, it really speaks to oftentimes the seed idea is the instinct for something new, it's messy, it's just a seed, it's not refined. It needs to be nurtured into fruition to become something viable. So before you evaluate it and start to converge, begin to explore with it, play with it, build on it, add to it…taking something beyond just convergence and adding in time for divergence.
I'll give an example of how this looks in one organization I worked with, a very large organization, where they used to have meetings that they felt the creativity wasn't their problem, but everybody was vying for who's idea was better. They started applying some of these principles and practices and giving this process lot more divergent space. They started calling their meetings "Discovery Sessions." They allowed for a certain amount of divergence time. If they had an hour, maybe twenty-five minutes was in divergence first. They started finding that they were creating better ideas, more novel ideas, more collaborative ideas…and when it came time to get the convergence, the convergence went so much more quickly because they allowed themselves some divergence first.
I would say allowing conscious time, consciously creating a space to diverge, where no one can judge or evaluate ideas, you just build on them, explore them, and expand them, before you go into the convergence where then you rate it...then you connect it to the criteria and the objectives of the problem that you have. Then, just knowing that sometimes you have to practice low-risk, low-stakes exercises, practices or games, they might seem frivolous, but by practicing low-risk, low-stakes
exercises, then that better prepares you for high-risk, high-stakes problem solving. With this practice, you become more nimble and flexible and adaptive inside yourself. That piece is connecting to, looking at new, perhaps non-conventional principles and practices to sort of break those patterns, so you begin to think differently.
Michael: Earlier you mentioned using applied improvisation and you talked about you take part in improvised plays for 10 years. I'm not sure everyone here has even attended an improv session or knows what that means. When you say "improvised plays" does that mean there's no script whatsoever for the play and the actors just make up the play on the spot?
Michelle: Yes, I'm glad you brought that up, because that distinguishes improvising, like improv theater, like you might see on Whose Line, or improvised plays like our performing group used to do which the goal, the objective, was to entertain the audience using improvisational theater principles and practices. We would use the improv principles, but there was absolutely no script. We would completely improvise a full-length play, and that's when I discovered the power of the improv principles…because by adhering to the principles and the practices of improv, you truly could self-organize and create something out of nothing, and you'd begin to learn that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, which is a big facet of Emergence.
Applied improvisation, in the way we use it in organizations, is taking the same principles and practices, but with a different goal or set of objectives. The goal isn't for entertainment, the goal isn't to be improv theater performers for people who go out on a Friday night to watch you. The goal with Applied Improvisation is whatever your business goals are: better leadership, solve problems more quickly, think more creatively, adapt, have more cohesive co-creative teams, reduce turnover, more novel ideas if you're doing product development, or any kind of development, etc.
Your applying improvisational theater principles and practices to something larger than performance. For example, in my work with organizations I don't throw people up there to perform improv because the goal isn't to teach them to be performers. I often get them working either as a whole group or with partners or in small groups using various improv practices and games, but, most significantly, embodying principles to work on real-world issues or problems they're solving or visions they're creating.
The practices are simply a way of embodying the principles, but it's the principles in action that are what's transformative. For example, "yes, and" except most organizations live by "yes, but". So "yes, and" is very good in the divergent space. Heighten and explore, allow yourself and your ideas to be changed by what's said and what happens. Those, and may more, are a big part of improvisation. You're up there and something new emerges and you have to adapt instantly. You don't fight it, you don't resist it, you just adapt to it, and you allow your character to be changed, you allow your ideas to be changed, you allow the direction to be changed. That's a real significant part of the creative process when developing anything.
Another thing about improv, because it happens in real time, you're focusing on presence over polish. Oftentimes, in brainstorming sessions or ideation sessions, people are afraid to speak up or they wait until their idea's fully formed. In improv, literally the practices force you to be so present, you have to say something, you have to say something right away, and by practicing that, you truly bypass the editor, and you become more comfortable with throwing things out there. If people have to, for a certain agreed upon amount of time in the divergent space, "yes, and" it, go with it, explore it and expand it, the first idea thrown out often isn't the best idea. It may be, but in many cases, it's just a seed idea
or it's has a messy fragment of a good idea, and by expanding it and exploring it, and "yes, and-ing" it, you give it the chance to become something new and different.
There are many more, but one other very significant part of doing a lot of creative activities and improv-based activities with people and organizations is that you begin to have a different relationship to failure and the concept of making mistakes. Mistakes become invitations to create. Mistakes are simply iterations in the creative process. They're not binary finalities, like "yes/no", "good/bad", "right/wrong". They're invitations to modify, to explore, to grow. A lot of people know that when you're prototyping, you then try it out and you modify it. One of the things that improv-based practices allow you to do is get a lot of practice in realtime with instant modification, instant trial and error, and so then you become less resistant to change, and more adaptive when you're doing it around a real world project.
Michael: Do the principles, in your experience, make a difference? Does it really make a difference whether you literally say, "yes, and" to someone's idea instead of "no, but"?
Michelle: Literally saying the words "yes, and" can be helpful at first, and is simply a good way to remind your mind to do it, but it really is more the concept of "yes, and-ing" - the concept of accepting an idea as it is offered and building, adding onto it, before you negate it, before you hone in and say, "Well, that won't work, because…" that makes the huge difference. That, to me, is the difference between generative thinking - which is connected to the divergence process, and critical thinking - which is often connected to the convergent part of the creative process.
Both are essential, but the key is not to go immediately into the critical thinking, until you've gone into some generative thinking. I like to think of it in terms of the way nature generates and creates. The branch "yes, ands" the tree, the leaves "yes, and" the branches. Nature creates generatively. Our mind is designed to create generatively, and unfortunately, we are not socialized and educated into doing that. But we have nature on our side - remember back to when you're a little child or watching kids play…someone throws out an idea, and others instantly add onto it. They start creating fantasy worlds and they're "playing pretend" and they're building on each other's story. Then all of a sudden, we go to school and we get thrust into binary thinking, so we leave our natural beautiful, multidimensional way of creating and making associations and connections, and we get into binary thinking - right/wrong; good/bad; yes/no.
People begin to associate that if you get the "right" answer, you're a good person or a smart person - so then people freeze up, afraid of saying something wrong or silly. "Yes, and" is simply a way, a tool, of getting back into your natural generative, creative self. Then, you generate more ideas, you think of them and then you can use some of the more critical thinking to put it up against, "What are the criteria we're trying to beat here? What are the objectives we're trying to create?" Absolutely. "Heighten and explore" is another big improv principle which fits into that.
The principles, it's been my experience, are what create the container for new ways of thinking, new ways of interacting, new ways of being, and therefore, new and more accelerated ideas to emerge. It allows people to be safer, to put ideas out there, so you do get the most of your teams, and you get the most of yourself.
Michael: Is this more a team or co-creative way of solving problems vs. a hierarchical way as well?
Michelle: It's very much a team and collaborative and cocreative way. It can also be a very individual way. You can "yes, and" your own thinking. Often we, in the shower or running or doing something, get an amazing idea and in that moment we get excited. Then all of a sudden, before we allow ourselves to "yes, and" each other or "yes, and" our own idea, we find all the reasons it won't work, and we start "yes, but-ing" our own creative ideas, so individually it works.
Even within a hierarchies this can work if the leaders are embracing the principles. It becomes challenging if you have a "yes, and-ing" team and a "yes, but-ing" leader of that team. I think it's less that hierarchy impacts it, it's more the way of being in the mindset and the principles that the leaders within the hierarchy embrace - that creativity is there available for anyone, no matter who you are in the organization. It always behooves a leader to be able to embrace principles and practices that will allow the most creativity to emerge from their employees.
Michael: How do the rules of improv fit in with a more conscious way of being and creating software?
Michelle: I love the improv principles because they lend so well to a collaborative work culture, a collaborative team, and collaborative groups. First of all, you don't have to agree with someone. There's a difference between accepting an offer and agreeing it, and the idea of acceptance allows an idea to be heard before you jump down on it.
You don't have to necessarily like everything about a particular person, but if we agree on some principles of engagement - that for the next twenty minutes or the next two days we'll apply them - or that we want to embed in part of our ongoing culture that we're going to do, then it creates more spaciousness and more safety for people to think of ideas.
A big part of consciousness, in general, is becoming conscious of what is in front of you. It helps you become very present. You listen more. You listen more deeply, you listen more generously, and by that meaning you're not listening for what you're going to say next, you're listening to what the person really has to say, and in that, if you are completely present, you then have so many options of how to respond. If you're present within yourself, which improv principles and practices help you access your own presence, when you're more present within yourself a well wellspring of options and possibilities emerge that you know would not have previously imagined.
You are not trapped by a pre-designed agenda, although that can be a guide and a starting point, but you're interacting with truly what's happening in the moment, whether it's in your own creative unconscious as you're generating ideas or if you're collaborating with others. By being completely present, you have access to an abundance of creativity that you don't have, if you have an idea you're going to be set on the idea, and then your only goal is to push that idea forward.
It may happen that you have a great idea and you do push it forward, but by being present it becomes much more clear if there are other options and other people can contribute better to that idea. I think presence and consciousness go hand-in-hand, and these principles are simply a way to help activate more presence in a group or a system. Another thing is, by practicing a lot of these in low-stake, low-risk environments, you begin to naturally embody it more in your everyday life.
For the complete interview, along with some techniques to apply, sign up for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit for FREE at http://conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com
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Applied Creativity and Play - Heart of it All interviews me
I was interviewed on the Heart of it All online radio show on applied
creativity, play, co-creativity, and creating conditions for creative emergence:
Part 1: http://bit.ly/ZnuLSO
Part 2: http://bit.ly/1xJwApo
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Resistance Gets a Bad Rap in the Creative Process
Resistance gets a bad rap. It can be a natural, healthy
part of the creative process, and serve generative purposes. As the the unknown of what is emerging meets and the desire to maintain the known status quo, a dynamic tension surfaces and resistance happens. It's not about avoiding resistance, but learning to move through it. This can serve, among other things, to strengthen what actually is emerging. It's part of the expansion and contraction that comes with any new birth.
For more on this and ways to move through it, see my article on Natural Resistance in the creative process ...and learning from nature's creativity:
http://creativeemergence.typepad.com/the_fertile_unknown/2006/05/natural_resista.html
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The Creative Source
image from www.dreamstime.com
My short reflection on, and homage to, the Creative Source
--the creative, life-giving, mysterious, generative
source within us that gives birth to
all things creative and emergent--
as we enter a new year...filled with new potential,
dreams, directions, expressions and creations.
...
Inside us there is a spacious fullness, a coherent wildness...
The kind of power that doesn't always display
its full plumagein grand revelry.
Instead, one of swimming silently-boldy
throughout the ether waves
Creating its own energy currents...
Calling, leading, guiding, emerging.
It is the source, within, of full-on aliveness,
generativity, creativity,
and your pristine uniqueness.
Creative source energy moves and meanders and twists
and turns and spirals into itself through our Selves.
It is spiraling dynamics embodified.
It is hide and seek, the seeker and the sought,
yearning and satiation all at once.
It beckons, but does not beg.
It captivates, yet holds no captives.
It thrives on your realness to reveal its true nature.
It is ever-generous and forgiving.
It mourns and rejoices simultaneously,
as it unites and differentiates...and unites again.
The creative source is
bonding, binding, bounding, boundarying,
unbinding, unwinding, unraveling,
restructuring, reorganizing,
deconstructing, disorganizing,
pattern breaking and new pattern making.
It is both the riddler and the riddle...
The one-eyed gypsy dance of converge and diverge,
where what is isn't, and what isn't is.
(The other eye faces inward).
It leads the inside-out, outside-in dance of creation.
The creative source is at once yin and yang,
gentle and strong,
humble and bold,
nurturing and activating,
behind-the-scenes and front-and-center...
throwing streamers, lighting sparklers
to celebrate your uniqueness.
But it will settle for nothing less.
You must be you.
Stay in your ground and
no one, no thing, no way
can make you less than!
The creative source is mutable, fluid,
stable, hard, soft,
transactional and transformational.
It is honoring, sobering, intoxicating,
lifting, holding, releasing.
It is un-languaging and re-languaging.
First, it asks, break some rules.
The creative source can draw forth
the whirl in a dervish,
the bloom in a passion,
the fruition in a dream,
and the purpose in a soul.
It is serious, but does not take itself seriously.
It comes alive with play and fun and the delightful unexpected.
It gets top billing at the Cosmic Comedy Club:
"Take my life...please."
The creative source is not asking us to be filled,
but rather to feel - and engage - how full we already are.
Here. Now.
It is the inflection point where the past, present,
and future meet and tryst...
and, as if by magic, a new creation is born!
The creative source catalyzes resplendent
deepening, ripening, opening, furthering,
recognizing, rearranging, aha-ing, relationshiping,
connecting, embodying, and aligning.
Birth, death, rebirth-
the spiral unfolds.
Truth bursts forth,
shakes itself off,
and settles in to, ahhh,
its own rightful space.
Higher order has organized
and breathes a sigh of relief.
The creative source is in itself a parallel universe.
It is human and divine,
generous and claiming,
shielding and revealing,
It is large and small,
epic and mundane,
reality and fantasy,
universal and unique,
gathering and fraying,
stillness and cultivation,
mystery and revelation.
It offers us an inner authority,
a knowing, and a beacon
to sustain and inform us
amidst fears and doubts,
hardships and crises...
our own or others.
It is the place within us
where life is ever-seeking and
ever-generating more life...
filled with infinite creative potential
just waiting to be cultivated.
It contains the meticulous balance
of flow and stucture for all of our creations.
Just show up, let it lead.
It will meet you at your dance.
It's game.
It will swing you and dip you,
into your very Self.
It will kick up your heels
yet be there, sturdy and steadfast,
to catch you.
It will meet you in your pain
It will meet you in your joy.
Just show up - fully - from wherever you are.
It wants and needs to partner with us.
The creative source is not the answer,
it contains the question to the Universe,
"Who am I?"
It is a knowing, a wondering,
a paradox, and a circus.
YOU are the main attraction.
Step right up.
The world needs your uniqueness. :-)
The creative source is both speaker and listener--
the hearer and the heard.
It washes through the crevasses
of dried up hope and habit
until it becomes fertile,
alive, breathing potential.
I am. We are.
It allows the unique Being in me
to be with the unique Being in you.
Namaste.
With deep appreciation of your magnificent creative uniqueness
...and the celebration of what only YOU can create and offer in 2014!
Happy New Year!
Warmly,
Michelle
By Michelle James©2013
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Creative Emergence by Following the Future into the Present
As
the new within us is emerging, the old sometimes fights
back with a
vengence to maintain its status quo. It can become an epic battle
between the habituated, outdated familiar and the emergent, life-giving
unfamiliar.
During the transition, being neither here nor there can be quite unnerving - and sometimes problem-causing. It brings up fears, doubts, insecurities...feelings of not being on solid ground. It also brings up the most amazing creative, generative opportunities if we choose to find and cultivate them, even amidst total discomfort.
It is not the time to seek comfort and direction by looking to the
past to inform the present. It is the time to call in the future to
inform the present...and see what is really ready to emerge. No matter
how deeply I know this, it is still requires all my presence and
commitment to it when I go through my own emergent transitions.
Follow the future by discerning what was from what is emerging; being present moment by moment to lean into the emergent impulses - and learning how to hear and feel them; and staying committed to the higher vision, not the returning limiting pattern. And...following that which fills you most with life - that's always a guide to a more creative expression of self, and a more generative emergent future.
#creativeemergence #followingthefuture
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Masterpiece Energy - An Exploration of Generative Creativity
Image from pbs.org
It is Transformative...and Invites us into More than we Currently Know and Are
When I think of Masterpiece Energy, I think of it as the
embodiment of the confluence of several
key elements, regardless of genre: it is alive, transformative,
impeccably crafted, and has an element of surprise. It includes the
ordinary…and goes beyond it. To use and improv term, it “yes-ands” what is, and
takes it somewhere new. It takes both the creator and the experiencer of the
creation to new places. It exudes energy, and creates an energy shift in the
beholder. I even thinks it can go beyond that to elicit a co-creative quality
in the experiencer. It invokes insights, awareness’ or an expanded framework or
consciousness for how we hold the world. Masterpiece Energy invites us into
more than we consciously know, more than we have allowed to be possible, and
more of our own unique creativity.
It is "Living Art" - Fully Alive in the Beholder
Masterpiece Energy, for me, is among other things, “living
art” - art that is fully alive in the beholder of the art – weather a painting,
a piece of music, a performance, etc. It has a quality of aliveness, not just
for the creator, but also for those who experience what’s been created. For an example, when I was in the
National Gallery of Art several years ago, I found myself totally immersed in Rembrant’s self portrait.
I was captivated. I felt as though he were standing right next to me. I knew
very little about his life beforehand, but after being with that painting for
20 minutes, felt as if I knew him.
I literally felt as he were alive and standing right there, sharing his
world with me. It was fully alive for me, and the experience as profound as if
we had just had a conversation….maybe even more so, in that words can often
shroud the essence of someone.
It Takes Us Somewhere New
I had a similar experience in a totally different venue. I
went with a group of people to an artist’s home in Sedona, Arizona, who was
married to a Medicine Man. She painted wolves, shamans, other-worldly
landscapes. While there were so many wonderful and truly gifted artists in the
area, her work had an additional quality that made the paintings come to life
before my eyes. I felt like I was in desert where all these people and animals
where there, alive and breathing all around me. I was transfixed. It was
breathtaking. I was not just an observed, but an active participant in the
experience of the art. That experience was transformative - I can still be
transported to that feeling, and the feeling of an expanded awareness as it as
I talk about it. It feels like it lives in me. I love most all art…experiencing
it, creating it, and learning from it…but
when I come across Masterpiece Energy, it always takes me somewhere new,
expansive and somewhat unique.
It Goes Beyond Skill and Talent
Masterpiece Energy is also about where a certain level of
mastery – skill, accomplishment, refinement - in craft and form. The creator is
expressing what is alive for him or her with a level of skill and nuance that
is uncommon. There is a quote that says,
“To do what others cannot do is talent. To do what talent cannot do is
genius.” Masterpiece Energy, for me, is the place where that place beyond
talent meets up with that seasoned in craft. And not just prescribed craft, but a level of craft that
takes the art form itself to a new level. Two worlds unite to form a previously
unimaginable third thing…and the new birth is a masterpiece.
It Transcends Time and Space
Masterpiece Energy transcends time. It is “out of time” in a
way…at least out of time as we experience it in our left-brain dominant,
linear-thinking world. It brings
to my mind the brain states. The conscious brain state, referred to as the Beta
state, is considered our everyday waking experience of reality…and then there
is the Alpha –Theta, and Delta states, which are considered the domain of the
unconscious mind in ever-deepening levels – and where exists and infinite
source of creativity. To me, Masterpiece Energy is the domain of the non-Beta
states…the place that goes beyond our logical reasoning – although it may
contain it – into a non-verbal state of pure experience. It is
multi-dimensional – impacting experience at more than one dimension
simultaneously.
It Generates a Shared Connection
With a Masterpiece Energy, the creator of the Masterpiece
and the experiencer share a moment out of the space-time continuum. There is a connection, a feeling, an
understanding – it goes beyond age, culture, language, and time. It that
moment, there is a relationship between the creator and the experiencer of the
creation, often even a sense of kindredness. The relationship to time and space temporarily changes.
It Taps into the Collective Unconscious
If it has this power to
unite people across space and time, it is there for all of us. It is something
we can access and cultivate. We don’t all have the same gifts, skills and
levels of talent in the same ways, but we all have access to the creative
unconscious, where this energy exists and the power to create from what is most
alive in us. And aliveness speaks. Not only can we access this energy as
individuals, but as groups. Imagine the transformational power that can be
unleashed in our lives, organizations, communities - both individually and
collectively - by harnessing the Energy of the collective creative unconscious
– the fertile, alive, generous unknown.
It is a Dynamic Communication across Dimensions
Masterpiece Energy is a dynamic communication across and
between multiple dimensions including a communication between the unformed and
the forming - the shaping of the unknown into something known, felt, and
experienced; a communication between our essence and our senses; a
communication between the creator - the giver - and the individual experiencer-
the receiver; and the communication between that which has been created and the
collective unfolding. Masterpiece Energy generates a greater understanding –
that transcends, time, space, words and externally imposed constructs - about
who we are and who we can be. Ever generous, it offers us that chance to open,
expand, and evolve - both individually and collectively. It invites us to
co-create with it so it - and we - can become actualized in the world. It
provides the rhythm. It asks in return for our commitment, focus, attention,
presence and openness of mind and heart as we engage the dance.
It Holds the Creative Rhythm of Life
Masterpiece Energy is the universal dance of creation. It is an invitation to the ever-evolving party where we can experience the creative rhythm of life, nature and what it means to be more deeply human. Through the embodied language of resonance, it lifts us out of our current context and into the greater engagement of life and the fullness of our human potential.
It is the Driving Energy of Creation and Connection
Masterpiece Energy is a driving energy of creation and connection. It’s the life trajectory that compels us to manifest and evolve our deepest creative natures out into the world...and meet each other there.
~~~~~~~
There are many other terms that could be substituted for Masterpiece Energy, especially in the second half of the post. The exercise brought up my more general thoughts about the creative process, emergence space, creation from the core, and the life-generating creative source. But for now, just leaving it as I had originally written it in our dialogue.
~ Michelle James ©2013
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Reclaiming our Creative Core
Creativity is at the very core of who we are.
We are creative beings. It is at the essence of what life really is about and how life really works - creatively. We
have been socialized and educated, and sometimes traumatized out of our natural creativity so we forget
that we're all creative by the time we become adults.
In the past, some split off totally from their creative core (and think they are not creative), others relegated it onto the sidelines to do for fun after the "real work" was done, while others stayed connected, often feeling misunderstood. We've been a society of creativity witnesses more than creativity engagers. Thankfully, that's been shifting over the past few years as more people (and organizations) are tapping into and valuing their creative natures, but many still live and work from "old school" limiting assumptions around what creativity is and who is creative.
Reconnecting with our essential
creative
nature leads to an all-around more vibrant life...because it is how we are naturally
designed! Just observe kids discovering, playing, exploring and
creating before they were socialized or labeled or "corrected" out of it. Our creative core is so much bigger that our training or beliefs...and is accessible to anyone at anytime.
When
we create (and reduce our self judgment), we feel more alive, enthusiastic and
connected to the flow of life. The more access we have to our creativity, the
more connections we make, and the more opportunities we cultivate. Stress reduces automatically as we access our creative aliveness - that which gives us "juice"! It is fully alive.
When accessing our
creativity we’re happier and more joyful. The brain unleashes endorphins
and we feel better. Working with creativity generally leads to a more engaged, juicy living. And we buy into what we create - it has meaning. Living an expressed creative life contains the
balance between structure and flow, action and reflection, activity and
renewal, the mind and the body. Creativity contains the dynamic tension of seeming opposites - sometimes working harmoniously through us, sometimes in struggle. The creative core needs us to engage it…explore,
experiment, cultivate, be present and listen deeply.
We all were influenced by certain assumptions growing up. Whether they came from parents, teachers, colleagues, institutions, fears, shoulds, societal norms of "how business is done," etc., we could not escape them. But we can question them, challenge them, engage them, play with them, and test for ourselves which ones really work for us.
We can go beneath the assumptions into our creative core to discover what really brings us to life. We can then choose consciously which ones we keep, which ones we release, which ones we transform, and be present to what other, newer ones want to emerge to help us discover or create more generative ways of thinking, living and creating. The creative wellspring underneath our assumptions is infinite and generous - always giving if we get into the space to receive.
When we venture underneath that which we have accepted - our inhibiting assumptions about ourselves and the "correct" ways we "should" think, work, or use our time - that are not at our creative core, we can re-access our creatively unique flow. We can then really live our aliveness - our creative "juice" - out in the world.
It takes time, attention and intention. It requires giving ourselves space to listen into that inner voice and cultivate out it's creative riches (whether artistically talented or not.). It takes protecting the voice as it is emerging from our own inner judgments or the evaluations of others as it is unfolding. Sometimes we need to protect our creative voice as it emerges...it can be vulnerable and shaky when first coming to the surface - messy, untamed, and often not understandable or relate-able at first against our current context. In other words, easy to judge or negate.
Beyond our own juicy aliveness, reclaiming our creative core is essential for the world we live in. As
we collectively expand our notions of what creativity means and how it
can be expressed, exponential potential is activated...new insights
emerge, new connections are made, and more generative structures and
systems can be created. Enlivened, we can contribute from a place of our uniquely inspired purpose.
Our world can more positively change because we come from more
life-giving assumptions, not outdated, constricted, fear-based ones. And that begins with each of us...individually.
The awesome thing about the creative source is that, like water over rocks, it cannot be stopped. The creative life energy is stronger, and becomes more so as we value it and engage it. We have nature on our side!
~ Michelle James 2013
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Creativity-Centered Work Paradigm
Image source: Fotalia
My take on the 6 questions:
How does your work engage creativity?
My calling so far feels like it has been to integrate the worlds of creativity, service, meaning and commerce; cultivate whole brain, whole-body, whole-person engagement and full-on aliveness in the workplace (and in life!); and help co-create - with others who are similarly inspired - new, more generative foundations upon which to develop soul-based, vibrant businesses, organizations and communities. Also, my work (The Center for Creative Emergence) integrates more “yin” practices, whole-brain and body-centered practices and ways of being into the more conventionally “yang” left-brain dominant work culture. All of my workshops and events are highly audience-experiential – with the focus being on the emergent creativity of whose in the room.
What do you see as the New Paradigm of Work?
This is a big question for me, one I have been exploring for a long time. One of the meta themes that I see emerging is that the new work paradigm resolves the paradoxes of the conventional paradigm – in values, mindsets, and ways of thinking, being and interacting. In other words, what has been considered opposites, or “either/or” choices in a limited work world view is moving into “both/and” opening of myriad possibilities in an expansive, creativity-centered framework. The new work paradigm has a a much larger playing field – our concepts of success, making a living, service, purpose, meaning, creative expression are changing. The lines are blurring…these things are not silo-ed and separated as much. Creativity is no longer seen as “woo woo” or something you engage after work on your free time – it’s right in the center of the new work paradigm.
A creativity-centered paradigm requires new foundational principles of engagement. The same rules that applied for a static, conformity-based, do-as-you-are-told workplace are very different than those of a dynamic, alive, adaptive, resilient, independent-thinking, creative workplace. I believe we have much to learn from the principles of improv theater (yes-anding, makes everyone else look good, serve the good of the whole, mistakes are invitations to create, etc.) to help us both adapt to and co-create the new paradigm. I’d love to see improv theater training as part of the core training curriculum at all organizations – it’s hugely transformative.
What do you see as the role of creativity in that paradigm?
I see it as the core. Breaking old patterns, creating new foundations, developing more generative structures, and the expressing richer, fuller, more alive aspects of ourselves require us to actualize deeper levels – and use multiple expression - of our creative potential.
What mindsets do you see as essential for navigating the new work paradigm?
A shift in core values and foundational ways of being that are more expansive, generative and inclusive. I see the new mindsets as “Yes Anding” and containing older ones, and adding a new dimension to what was there before - a developmental, emergent process.
Some of the emerging mindsets I see are moving from either/or thinking to include more yes-anding, generative thinking; moving from valuing conformity and getting it right to valuing more exploration and original thinking; not just tolerating, but actually anticipating mistakes as part of the creative process and allowing for it much more liberally than in the past; moving from seeing “failure” as binary (pass/fail, right/wrong, good/bad) to experiencing it as an iteration - an invitation to learn, grow and evolve; moving from a selling-only mindset to a service mindset; using intuition and resonance as much as logic in decision making; increased comfort in improvising; using more heart, empathy, caring, co-creation in structuring the workplace, establishing the culture and environment, and engaging our work daily; and more focus on empowerment coming from the creativity withIN ourselves to name a few.
What is Creative Leadership to you?
A Creative Leader, to me, is a leader who chooses to use more of his or her own creative potential on an ongoing basis – choosing to always learn and evolve personally as well as professionally; one who is dedicated more to exploring possibilities than being right, and more to discovery than maintaining the status quo. Creative Leaders facilitate meaning, creativity, and contribution of those he or she serves – employee, colleague, team member, customer, participant, etc.
Creative Leadership is paradoxical: strong and soft; directional and flexible; strategic and emergent; focused and open. The creative leader, to use and improv terms, does what he or she needs to serve the scene…sometimes taking a lead role, other times support role and following what is already happening….stepping up and letting go as the situation dictates. Creative Leaders welcome, inspire, and awaken the Creative Leadership in those they lead.
MAKING IT REAL
Image source: The Agency Post
Transforming uncertainty into discovery. Once uncertainty is no longer something to be avoided, you can use it as a creative resource. It goes form being intimidating to being fun…and can lead to surprising creative breakthroughs. Here is an exercise to get started in making the unknown your BFF.
Research shows that moving differently creates new neurological pathways that free up the brain to think differently - an essential ingredient for innovation and new solutions. Moving in non-habitual ways requires the brain to be used in non-habitual ways which then leads to novel thinking. (i.e., improv theater groups use movement warm-ups to get out of habitual thought patterns and get fully present to create).
I created a workshop activity called The Creativity Walk which has many variations. In it, participants walk, move and nonverbally interact in myriad ways, each one designed to have them experience the conceptual framework of a certain states of being related to aspects of the creative process. One is discovery.
The Discovery Walk
In this practice, participants are asked to walk around and engage from a place of certainty, a place where they know the answers. Without exception, inevitably chests pop up, walks become linear and directed, bodies straighten up, eyes focus ahead, etc. Not too much interaction as people move around the room in a rapid, straightforward pace. Focus, yes. Newness, no.
Then they are asked to walk form uncertainty, a place where they do not know the answers. Bodies shrink, movement slows or stops altogether, eyes dart around or look down. Almost no interaction. There is a feeling in the room of fear, trepidation and judgment as they look like deers frozen in headlights. The energy is stagnant. Neither focus nor newness surfaces.
They are then asked to transform that uncertainty into discovery. They are told they still do not know the answers - still in the unknown - however, they now experience it from a state of discovery. Suddenly, the entire energy of the room shifts and awakens: they look about thoughtfully, they are fluid in their movement, they explore their surroundings with all of their senses, they are content, alert, curious and present. They look at each other. Movement goes back and forth from linear to non-linear as they keep moving ahead. There is a sense of contentment, ease, and a feeling of openness. Connections are made. Newness is possible.
There is a noticeable visceral difference between openness of the discovering unknown shut-down stuckness of the fear-based unknown. In both cases, we are with the unknown. In the former, we have possibilities open to us. Once felt in the body (embodied), it is much easier to re-access that feeling later when faced with uncertainty in real work and life situations. Discovery is instant empowerment.
You can do this as a team or group, or by yourself in a room. The key is to really feel the discomfort of static uncertainty in the body, and then let it transform into the dynamic openness of discovery. By consciously practicing transforming that which we do not know into a discovery process, we can more easily move through the fear of not knowing amidst the uncertainty around us on a more consistent basis.
~ Michelle James ©2012
For 31 other approaches to these same 6 questions, and 31 other creativity practices, download the Creativity in Business eBook (FREE for the next month!)
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Designing for Breakthroughs
In a Facebooks group I'm in, someone posted a
comment wondering about designing for
breakthrough innovation. I offerred my response and thought I'd share it here as well since it is relevent to the theme of this blog:
It's been my experience that you can create/design conditions - via generative principles, "whole-brain" practices, shaping the plysical environment, cultivating new cultural norms, etc. - that dramatically increase the chances for breakthroughs to emerge. While I believe a breakthrough can't be forced, we can design the "fertile soil" and engage intentional acitvities that make its emergence more likely.
That includes vastly different ways of thinking, being, embodying, perceiving, and expressing than we currently see in most work environments - which are designed on foundations for control and maintenance - not so much for change, emergence, transformation and breakthroughs.
Designing for breakthroughs includes the willingness for the unpredictable messiness of emergence...and that can be scary for a lot of people. While there is no way to design for comfort in creaitvity and emergence, we can design for emotional safety...that helps open the field and tap into the creative potentiality-in-waiting.
Also, while one might design for breakthrough, the breakthrough may occur seemingly randomly several iterations later...and may not immediately seem connected to the initial design, even though it is a result of it. It's more like we can co-design in partnership with the natural creative process to allow for more change of breakthroughs..but we can't control it. I believe if the designer is not surprised by what emerges, and has lots of space for the unknown embedded into the design, he or she is not necessairly designing for breakthroughs.
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Cultivating Creative Aliveness Poster
A couple yars ago I wrote an article on this blog on 9 Practices for Cultivating Creative Aliveness that goes into more detail with each of the practices. Today I played with making it into a poster (and shortening it) to go with a workshop I'll be doing. Thought I'd share it here:
The full-length article is at http://bit.ly/gx2Oyq
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Expand Your Story: Improv for Creative Reinvention
This was a from an online talk I gave on Creative Reinvention using principles and story-based practices from improvisational theater...one of the ways to live into a larger story....
http://www.slideshare.net/mjames7770/improv-for-creative-reinvention
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Whole Brain Creative Facilitation Workshop in December!
http://www.creativeemergence.com/wbfacilitation.html
2-day Workshop ~ December 7th and 8th.
PLUS 1 follow-up one-on-one coaching session.
Led by Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence.
Image from Mercedes Benz ad
This
workshop is for professional facilitators, trainers, OD practitioners,
coaches, consultants, educators, leaders and anyone else who wants to facilitate
creativity, dynamic learning and positive culture change for their
participants.
Join
the creativity facilitation and training revolution! In this workshop you will learn and
experience a variety of both right and left brain creativity approaches
and techniques designed to enliven your workshops and accelerate
participant learning.
Learn how to * Quickly and easily engage participants * Modify activities for the particular group and learning objectives * Draw forth the energy, passion, and assets already in the room * Cultivate the attitudes and behaviors for using whole-brain approaches * Create a safe and receptive learning environment
Effectively
getting groups to open up to experiential creative approaches begins
with increasing your own comfort and flexibility with the techniques you
facilitate. This workshop will focus on two levels at the same time -
you as a professional, authentic facilitator and you as a creative
individual. You will have the opportunity for personal expansion as you
gather useful tools.
Experience whole-brain training activities based in storytelling,
improvisational theater, visual imagery, somatics, accelerated learning,
ritual, systems thinking, Socratic and analytical processes...and
more! You will learn key creative facilitation principles, creativity
training design guidelines, and whole brain approaches to design and
facilitate innovative learning environments.
Explore using whole brain methods to:
* Get your own creative juices flowing
* Draw forth your natural gifts as a facilitator
* Explore the applications of these new tools
* Have fun. Surprise yourself and each other
* Let go of controls; think and respond spontaneously
Leave with creative activities for:
* Icebreakers
* Energizers
* Creating group story
* Innovation & idea generation
* Team & community building
In
this pattern-breaking program, you will learn how to let go of controls
and mindsets that otherwise inhibit your creative thinking. As you
facilitate this for your participants, they will experience a deeper
level of meaning and learning.
When: Friday & Saturday, December 7th and 8th (9:30: 4:30) and a follow
up phone one-on-one coaching session. Where: Falls Church, VA. Directions
will be provided.
More information and registration:
http://www.creativeemergence.com/wbfacilitation.html
Contact information:
email: [email protected]
phone: 703-760-9009
web: http://www.creativeemergence.com
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Creative Potential Actualized - Poster
A flower blooms unapolgetically....we can learn a lot from it. :-)
Pictures taken at Sky Meadows State Park 2012
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Cultivating Your Creatively Unique Calling - An Intentional Practice
Once you connect with your calling, the question isn't IF it can
be done - it's an ongoing, "What's mine to do (no more, no less) to serve it?" Asking if it can be done takes you out of the present and into a place of guessing, hoping and trying to 'figure it out.' It is binary. It takes you out of direct experience.
Listen into what is yours to do
Instead, asking what's yours to do is an intentional practice that keeps you in the present, moment by moment, where you can unfold and cultivate it as it emerges. No more = not taking on more than is yours...and letting go of whatever is not. No less = stepping up to what is needed to serve it, even when it is uncomfortable and ambiguous. (See my blog post about difference between Just-do-it thinking, Whatever-will-be-will-be thinking, and What's-mine-to-do thinking).
Don't wait to start walking until after you get clarity
Unlike with conventional planning or goal setting, you can't see the end when you get started cultivating a calling. When you are called to into your truly alive work - your inspired vision and mission - asking if it is possible is no longer a relevant question. The daily whats and hows - in doing and being - are what's relevant. As is learning the discernment of what's not yours to do. With every healthy yes, there is a series of healthy no's.
You discover exactly what is possible and how as you engage the process.
You discover what is authentically for you, and what's not. And you discover an infinite resource within you (I call it the Creative Source since is contains pure life-giving creative energy - there are lots of different names for it) that you have as an ally for the rest of your journey.
It is this, our inner sherpa, that helps us navigate the landscape of the amazing, rich, abundant fertile unknown. It carries the most holistically generative choices for us at any time - creatively, financially, and spiritually/meaningfully interconnected. Working with it it to cultivate your unique calling is an intentional practice. It will not lead you astray. It's job is life generating more life.
Use your whole brain and body
There are many ways to cultivate its creative wisdom. The more of our whole brain's multiple intelligences we engage - and the more of our whole selves we bring to it - the more expansive our understanding of it can be...and the more fun we will have! In addition to verbal questioning, start drawing it out, painting it out, journaling with both words and images, embodying it, bodystorming (acting it out in your body - using your somatic intelligence), etc. Using non-habitual ways to generate answers "tricks" the habitual thinker in us into generating something new. I see this everyday in my work...once we intentionally use our brains and bodies in different ways, breakthroughs happen more quickly and consistently. Breaking patterns leads to breakthroughs.
The world needs your Creative Uniqueness
Time for us all to claim and create what is ours to do! I believe the world is waiting for your unique creation that you and only you can offer us. There is no competition for that role - no one can be a better you than you. And when we find what is ours do it. it is always connected to helping other in same way - that really is embedded into the authentic callings...they are never just for ourselves. It just does not have to be limited to society's views of what is means to serve...our true callings always serve a higher purpose. :-)
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Creativity Rocks Opposites
Creativity comes to life at intersections. It thrives on opposites. It engages paradox until something new emerges. This transfers to the design of projects, processes, workshops, teams, organizations, etc. If we design for space to accommodate opposites (just like nature does) we have a more creative system. This is part of a presentation I'm giving on the yin/yang of creative process:
There's no end to what could be added.
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Recent Posts
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